The Writing Life: Save our (Newcastle) Libraries

The View over the Tyne from Newcastle (to The Sage)

Do take a moment to read about the projected cuts in Newcastle upon Tyne, that vibrant city where I was initially a university student, and then later on a resident, attending weekly Creative Writing classes for adults under the auspices (a) of the The People's Centre in North Shields and (b) the WEA (under the tutelage of Margaret Wilkinson).

There are pleas from authors in the Newcastle Chronicle: they feel it would be a tragic move to close so many library resources across the city.

As a student I was a frequent visitor to the Newcastle University Library. I remember many a happy morning in the old City Library during the time I attended the Creative Writing classes. I still recall looking up facts about the eating habits of raccoons - and about Cortes, cocoa and the New World.

David Gill outside Newcastle University

A group of writers in Newcastle have set up a WordPress site to show the support of 'Writers for Libraries', through poetry and prose contributions. Poetry Scotland editor, Sally Evans, has written vividly about the Newcastle University library 'Stacks': I remember these so well. Her prose piece, 'Her faith in Libraries', can be found here.

You will find my contribution here. It is a poem called 'Ode to Our Treasure Keepers'. 

West Jesmond from the Metro

Newcastle's elegant Northumberland Street

The Tyne Bridge by day

Magazine Moment (10): Quill and Parchment (USA) - Featured Photographer

I am grateful to editor, Sharmagne Leland-St. John, for inviting me to join her as her fellow 'Featured Photographer' for the June issue of the subscription online magazine, Quill and Parchment.

If you would like to see my photographs of Wales in the magazine, you are invited to follow the link here, and type the following Guest Passwords into the box that will appear when you click on Sharmagne's cover photograph of Tynemouth Castle (a site I know well from my years in Newcastle):

NAME: june
PASSWORD: lake

I hope you enjoy the issue!

Wonderful Words (6): Photoetry

I always enjoy keeping up with the Poetry Book Society recommendations, and I was particularly interested to read the word 'photoetry' in the latest edition (PBS Bulletin, Summer 09).

Paul Muldoon's book, Plan B, is described as 'photoetry' on account of the fact that the poems are complemented (and perhaps enhanced?) by the images of Scottish photographer, Norman McBeath. The PBS reviewer points out that, in this instance, the cover image alone serves as an illustration in the conventional sense of the word. The photographs sit alongside (or run parallel to) the poems and create an environment in which 'poems and images are in conversation'.

I enjoy ekphrastic poetry of all kinds, despite the fact that poems about artworks abound in profusion. By the sound of it, Plan B does not quite fall into the usual category. To date, I have only read about it. There are times - many times - of course, when a poem speaks entirely for itself, and any images it conjures up remain in the eye of the writer and of the reader. That can be very special. There are other times when external images play a key role, times when an electrifying symbiotic relationship develops on the page between text and image.

I have particularly enjoyed two recent collections of photoetry (as I can now refer to them!):

• Recollections (Flambard Press) by Maureen Almond. This volume of poetry developed out of Maureen's time as poet-in-residence at the Museum of Antiquities (now part of the Great North Museum), Newcastle upon Tyne. Her poems were partnered by the photographs of the museum's Audio-Visual Officer, Glyn Goodrick. The collection as a whole celebrates the work and collections of the museum and explores (in my opinion very successfully) the interaction between the Romans and the modern museum visitor.

• Batu-Angas (Seren, ISBN: 9781854114648) by Anne Cluysenaar is subtitled 'Envisioning Nature with Alfred Russel Wallace'. The poetry constitutes an exploration of the life of Wallace, whose independent discovery of natural selection in 1858 led to Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species. The enhancing illustrations and photographs represent some of the specimens collected by Wallace during his journeys. Cluysenaar runs the Henry Vaughan Society and edits their magazine Scintilla. She lives in Vaughan's hometown of Usk in Wales.

What photoetry editions have you encountered - and enjoyed? Do let me know.

I cannot, I cannot, I think, quite count this next volume as photoetry, but it definitely deserves a mention in this post:

• The Terracotta Army by Gary Geddes (Peterloo 2007). This book is beautifully produced. Each poem appears opposite a page containing a calligraphic Chinese character by Shuai Lizhi. I imagine (at least I am guessing) that each character represents the title of the facing poem. Each poem (in English) bears the title of one of the warriors: you will encounter the spy, the harness-maker, the military historian and the chaplain - to name but four.
  

Since we are speaking of definitions, how does photoetry differ from an anthology with illustrations in the traditional sense (think children's books, perhaps)? I believe that there is a distinction based around those words 'in conversation', but it is not easy to define with precision.

Culture Corner (4): Newcastle writers - swings and roundabouts

The Tyne Bridge by Night
Photo: David Gill 2009

I notice that the economic situation is now affecting plans for the proposed Northern Writers Centre on Tyneside. Plans for the centre may come to nothing, but the upside is that there is some funding available for writing projects.

Culture Corner (2): Great North Museum (a)

Newcastle upon Tyne
Top: Outside the Great North Museum: Hancock
Middle: On the way to the Great North Museum: Hatton
Bottom: Poster for the museum at West Jesmond Metro Station
(we used to live 100 metres from here!)

We have just returned from Tyneside, where there has been a huge buzz of excitement. We thoroughly enjoyed a preview of The Great North Museum, which had its official opening last Saturday. Members of the public and university students can now enjoy the magnificent displays in their stately state-of-the-art setting.

I remember my first encounter with the vibrant city of Newcastle upon Tyne, when I arrived as a university 'Fresher' from 'down south' in the late 1970s. It was a truly wonderful place to be in those days, but it has certainly had a facelift since then.

There are some more photographs of my trip down Memory Lane in the previous post (or next post, depending on how you view this). When we returned to Newcastle in the late 1980s, the influence of Catherine Cookson as a philanthropic benefactor to the city was much in evidence.

While I was job-seeking, I attended my first Creative Writing Class on Tyneside, under the auspices of the WEA, and led by Margaret Wilkinson. I loved every minute of the course.

• Museum press coverage: here and here (BBC); here and here.
• Interactive displays
• Sir Terry Farrell
  
• Ancient World Bloggers Group
  

Culture Corner (1): Great North Museum (b)

The Opening of the Great North Museum,
Newcastle upon Tyne, May 2009

(a) The Great North Museum: Hancock
(b) David outside the Great North Museum: Hatton
(c) and (d) Inside the GNM
(e) 1982: Outside the - old - Hatton Gallery:
Homer's bust in the Quadrangle, University of Newcastle, Rag Day 1982!
[We took it in turns to recite bits of Homer in Greek]

There was a great buzz in the air when we touched down in Newcastle Airport last Thursday to attend an opening evening at the Great North Museum. I had first arrived in the city by train as a university 'Fresher' in 1979: what a lot has changed since then. The city has always been vibrant, but it has definitely had a 21st century facelift. Additions like the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and The Sage have breathed new life into the area.

The Great North Museum brings together a number of Newcastle collections in a stately, state of the art museum. Gone are the days when museums were dusty and quaint cabinets of curiosity. The Great North Museum - a joint initiative between the City Council and the University - is a centre for education, enjoyment - and environmental concern. You can read, for example, about the Eye Project, in which young people have been playing a key role in recording the wildlife and landscape of the North East. The data has been fed into the Great North Museum: Hancock, so that the displays could reflect the current situation. There have been two databases: one for local recordings of wildlife sightings, and another, the North East Environmental Data Hub, for the recording of wildlife and habitat information by organisations and experts in the field. Both databases will help to inform the conservation needs of local species.

We were particularly interested to see how the collection of the old Hancock Museum fitted in alongside the university collections of The Shefton Museum (of Greek Antiquities), The Museum of Antiquities (from Hadrian's Wall) and the Hatton Gallery (of Art). It is an impressive start, but it is early days. I really hope that the respective - and sometimes overlapping - needs of 'town and gown' will be served successfully under this single starry flagship.

• Recollections by Maureen Almond (Flambard Press). Do take a look at this link. Recollections is a very special book for it celebrates Roman items from the old Museum of Antiquities, which is now part of the Great North Museum. Photographer, Glyn Goodrick's glossy photographs are the perfect complement to Maureen's poems. The poems and photographs were commissioned by Lindsay Allason-Jones, Director of Archaeological Museums for Newcastle University. The poetry collection contains a variety of forms, including examples of sonnets and haiku. Favourite poems include Erase (with an epigraph from Horace's Satires) and Aemilia and the Ring. You can click the link to Maureen's site.

• BBC4 Timewatch on Hadrian's Wall (6 days to view)
• Press coverage of the opening
  

Book Corner (1): Troy Town by Matt Merritt

Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Stratford, viewed from the Willow Cabin Arbour
(the maze is to the left, along the path and out of sight)


'Never too late to learn to trust the path
like rustics running the shepherd's race
at May Eve...'

Troy Town, Matt Merritt


'The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are indistinguishable.'

A Midsummer Night's Dream, II:II, Shakespeare

Troy Town by Matt Merritt, Arrowhead Press 2008, ISBN 978-1-904852-19-3

I wonder what images dance in your mind in response to Matt's evocative title, Troy Town. I have just finished reading this sparkling new collection and felt it would be good to share a few thoughts. Matt, a fellow blogger (at Polyolbion) and fellow graduate of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, has woven his thread, Theseus fashion, through the labyrinthine paths of landscape, love and loss.

Those who know Matt will not be surprised to encounter a barn owl buoyant on his tide of silence ('Skylarking'), the blackbird wrestling a worm out of the lawn ('Paradise Tanager') or Calidris canutus, king's men all, commanding the waves to turn back ('Knots') along the way; but birdsong is only one of many tunes - or half-remembered songs - that echo through and take flight from the pages of this book.

The volume has been beautifully produced, with a hard cover sporting a glossy photograph of the turf maze at Wing in Rutland on the dust jacket. Troy Town is prefaced with a quotation from A Midsummer Night's Dream (see above); and Matt's poem that lends its title to the whole collection suggests to this reader at least, that the essence of the work revolves, maze-fashion, around a movement from one place to another. This progression - in accordance with the nature of propulsion through a maze - is seldom linear. The quest takes the poet and his fellow travellers on what seems, perhaps, to be more of a metaphysical than a metaphorical journey, since all mental maps are redundant and all thoughts are put aside. We do not usually associate mazes with unfolding vistas of revelation, but Alison Brackenbury made the astute observation that somehow this work 'opens new horizons'.

This reader views the essence of Matt's poetry against the backcloth of his association with Poly-Olbion, the meandering epic of the landscape by Michael Drayton (1563-1631). Drayton's lines lead us along the highways and byways of a very different England. Drayton is long dead, but poetry - Matt's poetry - refuses to be moulded into dark places or squeezed into the cul-de-sacs of a maze.

Buy a copy to experience for yourself that canvas where moments fray to a fine thread, that place where the past is startled into a sudden eloquence so that nothing need follow.

Suggested reading:
Making the Most of the Light by Matt Merritt, HappenStance 2005

The Muse in Museums i

Left: the scene of a Rag Day recitation of Homer's Iliad (in Greek), The Quadrangle, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1982.

I have long been interested in the relationship between art and literature (and between art and poetry, in particular). I enjoy novels, like The Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, which develop out of a painting. I love ekphrastic poetry, which draws its inspiration from works of art. I am currently reading Burning Bright, in which Chevalier's characters have a [fictional] encounter with the poet and artist, William Blake.

I am also fascinated by the relationship that can develop between a museum object and a poem. As a Newcastle graduate in Classical Studies (with options in Archaeology), I was delighted to receive a copy of the recent poetry book by Maureen Almond, Recollections (Flambard Press). It contains 28 poems about the Roman items in the Museum of Antiquities at Newcastle University. The museum building is about to close, and the collection will be amalgamated with those from other local institutions to form the Great North Museum. The volume is beautifully produced, with glossy photographs. Almond's poems represent a mixture of formal and more open styles. They help us to appreciate the objects in the light of their historical and social contexts.

P.S. More on ekphrastic poetry ...